Police-cordoned streets. Paparazzi packed into tiny press pens, long lenses trained on A-listers. Locals and tourists changing travel plans in the sweltering heat as the city makes way for the year's highest-profile wedding.
No, not Manhattan, where New Yorkers are waiting to see if Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will really get married at Madison Square Garden this weekend, but Venice last June, where I reported on Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos' lavish wedding.
A different summer, a different billionaire couple, but the same flex: transforming a world famous landmark into a private wedding venue.
Taylor Swift's wedding is reminiscent of Jeff Bezos' Venice party
Bezos and Sánchez's wedding was impossible to miss while walking along the canals of Venice, even after they moved their celebration from the iconic Scuola Grande della Misericordia to a venue further from the city's center. There were fears there would be a big showdown between anti-billionaire activists and the couple, involving inflatable alligators, but the venue move put that particular protest on hold.
In blisteringly hot and uncomfortably humid weather in the peak of Venice's tourist season, I watched police cordon off cobbled streets normally filled with tourists and locals, while paparazzi blocked narrow walkways opposite luxury hotels in the hope of catching a shot of celebrity guests. I'm pretty sure I saw Sydney Sweeney and Khloe Kardashian leaving a hotel by water taxi.
Over the weekend, protesters sporadically climbed up poles or unfurled anti-Bezos banners at St Mark's Square, Venice's main piazza. While I was surprised to find many Venetians who were largely indifferent toward the wedding, others were furious. To them, their city had become a playground for the ultra-wealthy, with some of its most famous cultural landmarks being given up as backdrops for a private celebration.
Now it's New York City's turn. The New York Police Department confirmed to Business Insider that, starting at 1 p.m. on Friday, five streets were closed to vehicles, two to pedestrians, four had managed access, and certain entrances to Moynihan Train Hall and Penn Station were also closed for an unnamed event. Big weddings happen in New York City and Venice all the time, very rarely — if ever — do they result in road closures.
The Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter line in North America, announced "access restrictions at the request of the NYPD," and urged those traveling through Penn Station to "consider traveling through Grand Central or Atlantic Terminal."
The security announcements. The photos of cordons going up. The secrecy surrounding an event in the heart of an iconic city. The inevitable online complaints from frustrated locals. It all took me straight back to Venice.
A private Caribbean island or country estate might offer privacy, but an iconic landmark gives something else: the luxury of celebrating a private occasion at a spot known by millions who could never dream of hiring it themselves.
Both couples sought to give something back to the cities, respectively. Bezos and Sánchez donated €3 million to Venetian institutions, including organizations studying the city's fragile lagoon system and UNESCO's Venice office. Swift and Kelce, meanwhile, have made charitable donations to nonprofits in New York City, including a local food bank.
Whether this weekend is remembered for generosity or gridlock will depend on who you ask. For the guests, it'll be a celebration of the Swift-Kelce Love Story. For those rerouting through Midtown during a heat wave, it may feel more like a Cruel Summer.
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Joshua Nelken-Zitser is an award-winning Senior Reporter at Business Insider’s London bureau covering wealth, spending, and consumer culture.Through features, on-the-ground reporting, and As Told To essays, he explores how people use their money, from everyday spending to the lifestyles of the ultrawealthy, and what those choices say about modern life. His work focuses on the culture of money: how money shapes places and people, and how the world around them influences how they choose to spend.Joshua previously spent five years on the news desk, reporting from the US, across Europe, and the Middle East. In 2024, he received the Axel Springer Award for Change — Journalistic Piece of the Year and was highly commended at the British Journalism Awards for a multi-year investigation into subsidized gender-transition surgeries in Iran.His debut book (TRAUMA BONDS: How Generational Trauma Shapes, Divides and Connects Us) will be published by HarperCollins in January 2027.Got a tip? Email [email protected]. You can also follow him on X or Instagram.ExpertiseFeatures and reporting on affluent lifestyles, consumer spending, and the culture of money, alongside first-person stories about how people live and spend.Popular articlesWealth and spending:Series: Welcome to the 'Hamptons of England'Series: Living large in tiny homesThe new luxury real-estate agent uniform: Botox, stylists, and designer wardrobesI watched the ultra-rich descend on Venice for Jeff Bezos' wedding — and was shocked by how little locals cared'Clients bring back entire wardrobes': Tailors say Ozempic is reshaping Wall StreetThe new millennial flex: spending thousands on a birthday weekend at a chateauInternational features reporting:Iran will pay for your gender-transition surgery, but it comes with a cost — your dignityShe was killed by a look-alike she met on Instagram, police say. It thrust her family in Africa into a true-crime nightmare.How the trans alpaca ranchers of Custer County, Colorado, are forging a new frontierThe European housing crisis warping millennial life: The average Croatian lives with parents until 33Lithuania is the world's happiest place for under 30s, but it's also Europe's suicide capitalThe 'fairytale' French castles being used to shelter Ukrainian refugeesMost armies ignore autistic people. Israel is calling them up.
